“Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an unperson.”

Rethinking Pelosi and Reid

It is fashionable to hate on both Speaker Pelosi and Senate majority leader Reid these days. For a pretty long time I’ve been a defender of Pelosi. Maybe it’s because she represents the district next to mine. Or perhaps it’s because – save for Sandra Day O’Connor – she’s the most powerful woman in American history. Or, more likely, it’s because while witnessing the uselessness of the Senate, she presided over a House that passed a stronger health care bill with a public option, AND a cap-and-trade climate bill, AND a financial regulatory reform bill. The House gets stuff done, and it’s her house. Meanwhile, the Senate is useless in large part because – as I have maintained for a long time – Reid capitulates too readily to Republican obstructionism and doesn’t call their bluff and make them actually filibuster.

But I’m beginning to rethink my analysis. Maybe Reid allowed too much obstructionism, sure, but he did work with it. He had 60 votes in his caucus, and he got 100% of them to vote for the health care bill the first time around. Now, for his efforts, he is essentially guaranteed to lose is reelection this year. Meanwhile, Pelosi only has to get 50% of the House to vote, and she has 235 Democrats in the House, leaving her a decent number to spare. Yet it is increasingly looking like the House will fail to pass the Senate health care bill. And when that happens, health care will be finished for good.

So perhaps, in the end, Reid deserves more credit that many – including me – have given him.